October 7, 2023 will go down in the history books as the worst massacre of Jews in one day since the Holocaust.
Awakening on a Shabbat morning in my NYC apartment on October 7, the news started to trickle in, starting with a text from a friend.
There has been a breach at the Israeli border.
What do you mean, “a breach?”
Hamas terrorists infiltrated the border from Gaza and massacred Israelis at a kibbutz and at a music festival.
What?
With no television in my apartment for the past ten years (no regrets), I rely solely on news online. Clutching my iPhone, I arose from the comfort of my bed, threw the phone on the kitchen table, ran to the bathroom, washed, said the netillat yadayim, brushed my teeth and made a beeline for my laptop. My fingers couldn’t keep up with the thoughts rushing through my head. I typed all the major online news organizations into my laptop, www. www. www. OMG.
The next several hours, I scrolled, clicked, read, and scrolled some more - unable to look elsewhere, as if my eyes were sucked into the screen of my computer. Despite not eating a thing, my body was filled with a heaviness I didn’t recognize. A dead weight. The images were etching themselves in my mind. A girl of about twenty years old, barefoot, was dragged out from the back of a black jeep by her hair, with her hands tied behind her back; a deep bloody gash on her arm, and pants soiled with blood and dirt; a gun not far from her head. She was pushed into the backseat of the jeep by several men yelling in Arabic. OMG.
Over the next 24 hours, I was glued to the news online. Stories were coming in about a music festival that turned into a bloodbath where girls were brutally raped as their friends lay dying next to them on the ground. I saw videos of people running across a large sand-covered field, fleeing for their lives as they were hunted down and shot. I saw the words rape, shooting, RPGs, hiding, bomb shelters, and terrorists fill my screen.
The residents of a quiet, peaceful kibbutz, still sleeping on that Sabbath morning, were awoken by gunfire. The elderly, mothers, fathers, children, and babies, were tortured, raped, beheaded, burned alive, and hostages were taken. My mind still couldn’t comprehend.
Before we had a moment to process the events of October 7 or mourn the loss of so many innocent lives; before Israel had time to react, we saw massive protests all around the world - pro-Palestinian protests. What? What’s going on? The world is upside down. How did these people rally so fast? Why are they protesting against Israel and the Jews when we were just slaughtered in the most horrendous, heinous, and barbaric of ways - when over 200 people of every age, including babies and grandparents, were kidnapped and dragged into Gaza? Where a girl was paraded around, naked, half dead in the back of a pickup truck as terrorists sat on her body while Palestinians along the roadside in Gaza spat on her. I was at a loss for words.
It has been a month, and the enormity of what happened on October 7 is still coming to light. While still in a daze, Jews worldwide are rallying to help their brothers and sisters in Israel. To fight for their existence. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who was murdered by Hamas. In the meantime, Israel has mobilized and entered into war with Hamas in Gaza. Things are happening so quickly. We see images of dead and wounded Palestinians, and the pro-Palestinian protests are getting violent, the vitriol more venomous, including the ones at our elite educational institutions. But I realize that these aren’t pro-Palestinian protests, but rather anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protests. Ripping down posters of kidnapped Israelis doesn’t make them pro-Palestinian; it makes them anti-Jewish. Scrawling swastikas on buildings and Stars of David on Jewish homes doesn’t make them pro-Palestinian; it makes them anti-Jewish. Jews are hunted. Jews are hiding. Jews are chased, and I realize that ‘Never Again’ is happening again.
On social media, Israel and Jews are being attacked on a different war front. We are being called colonizers. We are being accused of genocide. Ethnic cleansing. A failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad lands in the parking lot near a hospital. The protestors accuse Israel of bombing a hospital killing 500 civilians. The truth, that it wasn’t Israel, doesn’t matter. The protests are getting bigger. Outside the Opera House, in the city where I was born, they are yelling “Gas the Jews.” In the streets of the UK, they are chanting, “Allah HuAkbar. Free, free Palestine. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” Free from what?
I am the grandchild of Iraqi Jews. My parents were born in India. I was born in Australia. My father’s skin color was darker than tan. My skin color is olive, but because I’m a Jew with many family members living in Israel, I am considered a white colonialist. More than seven hundred thousand Jews like me from Middle Eastern countries who were driven out of their homes, killed or fled because they were no longer safe, have made countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt practically Judenrein - free of Jews. But we are being accused of ethnic cleansing.
There’s so much to say. I try to fight back online, but my words are not enough. It’s a losing battle. Our numbers are too small. With each day and each new accusation, I find it harder to get out the words fast enough to convince the world that we are not colonizers. We are not committing genocide. In 1936 there were 16.7 million Jews. Now there are 15.5 million - 87 years later! In 1970 the Palestinian population “from the river to the sea” was 1.03 million. Now it is over 5 million - 53 years later. Has the meaning of genocide changed or just being ignorantly ignored?
Did those at the “Free Palestine” rallies also rally against Syria in support of the almost 4,000 Palestinians who were murdered by Assad not too long ago? Did they care about those Palestinians? Are those who are falsely accusing Israel of apartheid, rightly accusing Lebanon of denying citizenship and equal rights to generations of Palestinians - even those born in Lebanon?
So much doesn’t make sense right now, but in another way, it does make sense. So much has changed, yet nothing has really changed. When the ugly head of Jew hatred arises, there are not enough words. No matter what you say, no matter how much you explain, rationalize, or try to justify your existence, it doesn’t matter, because when the ugly head of antisemitism is revealed, no words will ever be enough.
When you get a chance please watch Emma Thompson about Anne Frank | Anne Frank House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XhGv9xLT5U.
At the end when Emma talks about what she imagines Anne would be doing if she were alive today. Makes me think about the power of your writing.
Sending love